"Momma didn't scream. Her eyes went bleak, dark, haunted. Despair washed the radiant color from her beautiful face; it resembled a death mask. I stared up at her, trying to tell her with my eyes that none of this could be true. Not daddy! Not my daddy! He couldn't be dead... he couldn't be! Death was for old people, sick people... not for somebody as loved and needed, and young."
- Flowers in the Attic